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billyo

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  1. Sorry Ernie, I was in a hurry to get to the market and put that a bit bluntly... It was from an economic review magazine I borrowed from a US economics student on a flight, written by a group of economic lecturers, unfortunatly I cant remember the name. Basically from what I can remeber, it based its conclusion on the following (in a perfect storm kind of way) Increasing demand: see India and China the biofuel situation, either people eat or people drive, world food reserves are the lowest for thirty years governments are going to realise, hopefully sooner rather than later, that people need food more than fuel and cut back on the production of biofuels in favour of food production which will increase the pressure on oil production (see malaysia, they built three new biofuel plants and have never used them because the population decided that they would rather cook with the palm oil.) Throw in a failed harvest and it will speed the whole process up. Supply issues: Iran cant increase supply, the goverment takes so much of the revenue that there is no investment in production infrastructure, to the point that the system is becoming overload and unsafe; a small accident.... Saudi Arabia, said that they wont increase supply because the market demand isnt increasing. Current price hikes are driven by speculators profiting, however, the authors thought that Saudi is very near maximum supply anyway and have little wiggle room, they have also claimed the same amount of reserves in the ground for the last 20 years despite all that has been taken out, so they might have already reached peak production. North Sea, enough said... Exploration, there is still oil out there, but the cost of getting out of the ground is increasing exponentially, see North pole, the new apperent reserves off Australia. The article compared the net energy from one litre of oil from the canadian tar sands to a backed potato with butter (made me laugh) Throw into all that some decent supply problems, eg the pipeline in Nigeria catching fire again or trouble in a major oil produceing country...  As late as last year a number of economists were laughed at when they predicted 100$ a barrel. As I said, its a bit of a perfect storm situation, and Im not taking all that the article said a gospel, but a couple of things happen at the same time and who knows where the price will go, gulp.  
  2. Hi Talking of a stiff drink, I read an article a couple of weeks ago reiewing the current world situation from fuel to food to domestic products and the most startling conclusion was that european domestic energy prices will double in the next two years and that by 2012 (london olympics) oil will be at 750$ a barrel. Not to mention that at the moment biofuel production curently is using 5% of the world grain production and that is set to increase to 9% in two years as well. Photovoltaic and solar thermal is suddenly looking like a viable option.... Now where did I leave those seedlings 
  3. Sorry, I dont know the rating as I havent bought it yet...! Billyo 
  4. Hi, Hope someone can help, ive looked in a couple of books trying to find the regs for connecting a non built in two ring electric hob (hope that makes sense!). Can I just run it off a seperate circuit of 3x2.5mm cable or does it have to be on 6mm like the built in ones?   Cheers Billyo
  5. Hi, sorry for not making it clear, I do and always have had a water meter here in france, and my house has been connected to the mains tout l'egout for the past eighteen years. I agree with the notion of you pay for what you use, but the fact that I have a second potty does not mean that Im going to start inviting more friends round for a cuppa and therefore cause more need for waste disposal. I also agree that the extension Im building is going to add more space to the house and therefore if I do ever sell will enablle more people to live here, but that is what the tax fonciere and to a lesser extent tax hab is for. I will also go and have a word with the nice lady in the Marie, but I have a strong suspicion that Im still going to come away poorer... Cheers Billy 
  6. Sorry not checked the puter for a while, seems that its becoming a bit of an emotive topic! It is going to be a new connection to an already exisiting connection on my property, what I object to is that Im going to have to pay this facture, and Im assuming that no one from the water company is going to come out and carry out the connection for me, which leaves me paying twice. Installing a new potty does not mean Im going to be flushing more waste away it just gives me a choice of where I go and read the news paper, so I dont understand why this tax is levied. I realise and accept that this 'luxury' will mean that I end up having to pay more tax fonc and have no issue with that (untill I read in said newspaper what they are spending my extra tax on, but thats a different story...). I thoroughly approve of water metering, anything that reduces the consumption of a valuable resource is a good thing, assuming that the money is spent on upgrading services and reducing leaks and not on the director generals dinner/car/luxury yatch.....   Billyo
  7. I was feeling happy with life, Just got off the phone with the marie, they had phoned to say that my Pde C ready for collection. Are you sure I replied, Yes and can you come and collect it now as we close in ten minutes. But I only dropped it round two weeks ago I said. We know, but no ones busy at the moment. She said; Stunned silence from me. What a result! Anyhoo, having got it and opened it the first thing I see is the facture for the various local taxes, fair enough this is france after all; But what made me fall off my chair was the second facture: 'Votre projet est egalement soumis au versement de la Participation pour Raccordement à l'Egout d'un montant de 974.67 Euros. ' They cant honestly be serious, Im connecting one new potty, but the connection is going to be on my land and not touch the main sewer in the road. Is this a normal charge that is levied or can I just ignore it? cheers billyo
  8. Hi I have a hedge surrounding my property, its evergreen and when cut back too much doesnt regrow, I suspect it the dreaded Leylandi....As its 3 metres deep in places I would like to cut it back to about a metre to recoup some of the space, the only problem is that I have neighbours and dont really want to be overlooked too much. Could anyone give me some options on what I could plant under it, I would like something fast growing (Im happy to water it for a couple of years untill its really established) that will climb up the branches and spread and if possible doesnt loose its leaves in winter. I live around montpellier, so cold not really a problem, but it gets a bit toasty. Cheers Billyo  
  9. It is for fitting around windows, or more precisly 2 patio windows Cheers
  10. Hi Ive been looking for quite a while for Sheets of white PVC, 2-3mm thick, either 30x200 or 120x200, like tha angle beeads you can buy for around windows, but none of the sheds seem to sell it, and the builders merchants dont seem to believe that I would need it. Does anyone have any ideas? Cheers
  11. Ive researchrd this for quite a while, its definatly a viable option, but you have to make alot of decisions first. As has been said, what are you wanting it to do, HW and heating or just the latter, is it for rads or UFH? The options are:  Pellet boilers that keep ticking over but you need ALOT of storage, and the price of pellets is only going one way as these systems become more fashionable. Good for Rads, slightly more complicated for UFH and good for HW Log Boilers, either one that keeps ticking over, but you need to keep adding wood, and this way it doesnt burn efficiently so becomes more pricey for wood, OR a Log boiler that does one complete burn cycle, very efficient, semi autonomous and significantly cheaper than a pellet boiler, but other issues, see thermal store below... And you need a decent supply of wood, correctly chopped and stored etc. Wood Burner with back boiler, does exactly what it say on the tin, but you have to keep it going yourself, again decent supply of wood, chopped and stored is needed. Thermal Stores: Fantastic things, basically a huge tank of water (depending on requirements) that gets heated and holds the heat until you need it, can be up to a few days. Perfect for log boilers on a complete burn cycle, makes you system more autonomous, good for HW rads and underfloor, if you get the tank set up properly, and has the advantage of being able to add other heat sources, for example solar so you can heat your HW in summer without having to spark up your boiler, or an oil boiler so if your ill, break an arm or are away you know you have heating. But complicated to instal and you need quite alot of space relativly near where your heating. I would suggest you look at German kit as they are more advanced than their Frzench counterparts, e.g. ATMOS, Deitrich and others for boilers and Akvatherm (i think) for thermal stores. If you have a spare hour or day have a look at www.heatweb.com, one the right hand side it has all the option and a system designer- Good Luck! Its a huge subject, if you want more info just ask, Im sure there are some experts on here that can tell you more than me.        
  12. OOPsu Sorry, I meant north west and now west, not NE. You can imagine what Im like giving directions in a car! Cheers
  13. An Update, After some prodding from the missus I got on the roof and moved the new antenna. It was pointing in the same direction as the old one,  in the direction of ST Guillem le Desert, its now pointing more east than north east and I have most ofthe other free channels,b but not F2 F3 Arte or M6 ,which seems a bit strange...  
  14. Tried rescanning both the old and the new to no avail, Im in Castelnau le lez, 34170   Cheers  
  15. I decided to upgrade myself and bought the box for terrestrial and not sat. Plgged in to the old Ariel and Im only getting TF1, TMC NRJ and 2 encrypted channels. So I went out and bought a new ariel as the old one looks as though it came from 18C rewired and am now getting nothing. I should mention that the old signal for normal TV is not good.   Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong. Cheers
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